Duncan Tonatiuh

Seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that outlawed school segregation, the State of California wrestled with the question in the Mendez v. Westminster case. Author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh tells the story the eyes of a child in Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation.

"I was immediately fascinated by the Mendez case. In some of my books, I try to talk about social justice," said Tonatiuh, interviewed from his native Mexico.